


Deliverance: redux

by WrithingBeneathYou



Series: The Salt Mine [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, eldritch au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-11-01 22:01:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20521163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/pseuds/WrithingBeneathYou
Summary: Ever since he was small, Tobirama had prayed—for guidance, for plenty, to see his family home safely from the war. Never in all of that time had his prayers been answered, but he still tried to offer up what little he could spare.It wouldn’t be until barely into his teen years that he realized he was forsaken by the powers that be because he had already been claimed by something much older.





	Deliverance: redux

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "'I’m scared.' Hashitobi pls" over on [Tumblr](https://writhingbeneathyou.tumblr.com/). It made me want to revisit the eldritch!Hashirama concept from [Deliverance](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19929436), but from a different angle…more subtle and with less overt Alucard. lol

Ever since he was small, Tobirama had prayed—for guidance, for plenty, to see his family home safely from the war. Never in all of that time had his prayers been answered, but he still tried to offer up what little he could spare. His dinner was surrendered to the fae, his blood to the old gods.

Lean times were made leaner in his devotion.

Even so, nothing he gave of himself would close the sluice gates as his clan’s blood spilled freely. No amount of praying spared him the pain of retrieving his brothers’ bloated bodies.

A part of him died everyday even as the dirt soaked up his family and grew fertile with it.

It wouldn’t be until barely into his teen years that he realized he was forsaken by the powers that be because he had already been claimed by something much older.

The first time he saw the eyes in the darkness, he rolled off of the tattered futon he shared with his brother and buried a kunai in the wall. He had brushed it off as a lingering nightmare and refused to discuss the incident further. Hashirama held him through the remainder of the night and assuaged his fear with words of comfort and callous-rough hands. After that, Tobirama began to notice the disembodied eyes everywhere, only a couple at first and mostly confined to the shadows, but growing in strength and number.

Strangely enough, his Anija was the only one whose presence held them at bay.

It was odd that the all-seeing nightmare tended to avoid Hashirama, but not unsurprising. Even as a gangly teen, he held great power. As a brother he was solicitous and giving. As a clan heir, he commanded authority, but from beneath that very same guise of beneficence. His light was obviously anathema to whatever dark entity had laid claim to Tobirama’s shadow.

Slowly, Tobirama’s fervent supplications found a new anchor.

The eyes would return whenever they separated for any length of time, so Tobirama resolved to never leave Hashirama’s side. He clung to the trailing ends of his brother’s obi and sought to serve him in every capacity, an ever-present force at his back. He was the wedge that forged Hashirama’s path and the shield that rose tall when arrows blotted out the sun.

They slotted together into one beautiful, but terrible truth—a weapon wielded by a dream.

As Tobirama’s sins began to accrue in earnest, even Hashirama’s light wasn’t enough to hold off the eyes entirely.

His devotions began anew. Offerings were made in triplicate to atone for the years he had forsaken the gods in a fit of pique. They reached such a fever pitch that even his own clan mates looked at him askance. Blood rites left scars on his pale skin and—when blood alone wasn’t enough—he tattooed lines of seals to accept the red rivulets as they spilled, like water on a prayer wheel. 

It made no difference. The eyes never so much as quavered.

He watched and was watched in turn.

Life continued, war raged, and his body changed, as bodies have a wont to do.

Puberty hit late, but hard. It was a subtle torture having to share a futon at night. His ghastly prayers turned towards far more immediate things than protection from the eyes or the ending of the war—things like temperance and control. He snuck into the woods many times to spill over his hand with his brother’s name on his lips and the weight of notice both eldritch and old guiding his wrist.

The same divine seals that activated under the spillage of blood collected his release all the same.

Glowed with it all the same.

The eyes watched him with increasing frequency after that first shameful act. With each compounding sin, the intensity of the eyes’ gaze grew until one day it seemed as if every swath of darkness writhed with sentience.

As Tobirama had grown to suspect, the darkness was of his own making.

Years passed and the war ended with a sigh.

Accords were signed.

The Uchiha were placated.

Tobirama no longer left out plates of rice or sigils drawn in blood.

Instead, he whispered devotions into his brother’s skin with more reverence than he had ever given the gods. He grew to relish each and every touch in the dark, even if the softness of their lovemaking drew the eyes closer—made them multiply into horrific, half-lidded sheets.

Over time, those too became a comfort in the odd liminal space that was peace.

When Hashirama’s armor was replaced with a hat and his sword with a brush, Tobirama stepped back into the shadows of his own volition.

The sensation of hands caressed him in familiar ways and a thousand brown eyes reaffirmed the fact that—regardless of the duties inherent in being Hokage—he would always have his brother’s love.

His undivided attention. 


End file.
